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Jason Silver

Web Development by CrookedBush.com Inc.

Thoughts and Reflections on Scripture

2020

June

Friday, June 19th, 2020
Related Song

Brief Breath

As I listened through this song and looked at the video of trees: old ones; young ones; dead ones; rotting ones; I felt like the Spirit of God was speaking to my spirit: that just as this Psalm attests, life is brief, but a breath, as evidenced by the forest.

See them standing stately, or gnarled and bent by forces outside their control; look at them, starved for nutrients on the rocky landscape, or reaching tall toward the hot sun! Many have fallen over in death. Can we hear their voices, entreating us to look and learn?

New life springs all around their carcasses. Their decay becomes a source of energy to the next generation, who each benefit from the carbon they've gleaned from the sun, as they return nutrients to the soil.

A tree's life hardly seems like just a "breath," but in terms of eternity, they live hardly any longer than we do.

We too leave behind not just our bodies, but the energy and effort we have put forth to change the world. It is important while we stand in life, to consider the "measure of our days." We may be just a shadow in light of eternity, but what sort of legacy do we leave behind which others "gather up?" Do we create a soil of love and peace, or bitterness and regret? Have we used our short lives to better the world, or are we grasping after personal satisfaction and selfish gain?

None of us are perfect, but we can each invite God to deliver us from ourselves, and to use our frailties to make the earth a better place.

It is only through God's grace that this can happen. O God, guard my ways, muzzle my vain tongue, make me Your tool to bring about a heaven on earth: the Kingdom of God!

Amen